She reached Bolton at half-past eleven, and, now she was there, put a bold face on it, rode up to the door, and, leaning forward on her horse, rang the hall-bell. A footman came to the door. With composed visage, though beating heart, she told him she desired to speak for a moment to Mr. Griffith Gaunt. He asked her, would she be pleased to alight; and it was clear by his manner no calamity had yet fallen. "No, no," said Kate; "let me speak to him here." The servant went in to tell his master. Kate sat quiet, with her heart still beating, but glowing now with joy. She was in time, then, thanks to her good horse. She patted him, and made the prettiest excuses aloud to him for riding him so hard through the snow. The footman came back to say that Mr. Gaunt had gone out. "Gone out? Whither? On horseback?" The footman did not know, but would ask within. While he was gone to inquire, Catharine lost patience, and rode into the stable-yard, and asked a young lout, who was lounging there, whether his master was gone out on horseback. The lounging youth took the trouble to call out the groom, and asked him. The groom said, "No," and that Mr. Gaunt was somewhere about the grounds, he thought. But in the midst of this colloquy, one of the maids, curious to see the lady, came out by the kitchen-door, and curtsied to Kate, and told her Mr. Gaunt was gone out walking with two other gentlemen. In the midst of her discourse, she recognized the visitor, and, having somehow imbibed the notion that Miss Peyton was likely to be Mrs. Gaunt, and govern Bolton Hall, decided to curry favor with her; so she called her "My Lady," and was very communicative. She said one of the gentlemen was strange to her; but the other was Doctor Islip, from Stanhope town. She knew him well: he had taken off her own brother's leg in a jiffy. "But, dear heart, Mistress," said she, "how pale you be! Do come in, and have a morsel of meat and a horn of ale." "Nay, my good girl," said Kate; "I could not eat; but bring me a mug of new milk, if you will. I have not broken my fast this day." The maid bustled in, and Catharine asked the groom if there were no means of knowing where Mr. Gaunt was. The groom and the boy scratched their heads, and looked puzzled. The lounging lout looked at their perplexity, and grinned satirically. This youth was Tom Leicester, born in wedlock, and therefore, in the law's eye, son of old Simon Leicester; but gossips said his true father was the late Captain Gaunt. Tom ran with the hounds for his own sport,--went out shooting with gentlemen, and belabored the briers for them at twopence per day and his dinner,--and abhorred all that sober men call work. By trade, a Beater; profession, a Scamp. Two maids came out together now,--one with the milk and a roll, the other with a letter. Catharine drank the milk, but could not eat. Then says the other maid,--